


a state of being other

by jublis



Series: tell me we'll never get used to it [1]
Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Jewish Holiday, Jewish Themes, Jewish Todd, M/M, and knox is SO gone for him, ashkenazi todd, author is jewish, author is not american and doesn't know about jewish-american culture, cameron bashing bc fuck him, charlie is a fucking delight, chris is jewish too!, i wanna see this friendship RISE, jewish Knox, mentions of antissemitism, sephardic knox, yiddish curses are the best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:08:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22808395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jublis/pseuds/jublis
Summary: Cameron was out that evening, probably lording his mathematical prowess over the other freshmen, so Knox sat by himself in their room. Alone. More than ever, he understood the state of being lonesome - of being other. His chest ached with homesickness. He missed his father’s rumbling laugh, and his Baba’s singing voice when she prayed, and his mother’s sumac chicken, and her stuffed grape leaves, and the way the candlelight from the Menorah made his living room glow golden, late at night.It was the first day of Chanukah, 1957, and Knox whispered the candle prayers to himself and an empty bedroom, and held the candle in his hand until it was warm enough for him to pretend that it was burning.
Relationships: Charlie Dalton/Knox Overstreet, Knox Overstreet & Charlie Dalton, Knox Overstreet & Todd Anderson, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry, not even mentioned but it's there, past Knox Oversteet/Chris Noel
Series: tell me we'll never get used to it [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639726
Comments: 30
Kudos: 103





	a state of being other

**Author's Note:**

> i am on a ROLL. yes knox and todd are jewish this is canon because i'm jewish and i said so  
> i hope you enjoy this!! comments make my little heart SING

Knox’s first Chanukah at Welton was lonely.

It started on late November and into the first week of December, so there wasn’t any hope of spending it with his family during Winter break. Knox felt oddly empty, staring at the unlit candle in his hand - he couldn’t risk lighting them up; he was a clumsy guy at the best of times, and setting a fire to his dorm room would probably earn him a few demerits. Probably.

He was fifteen, and rooming with Cameron, the prick. After a few unsavory jokes about Knox’s nose and his habit of collecting old, rare coins, it took all of Knox’s willpower and his mother’s chastising words in his head to not shove his Chanukah candles right up Cameron’s prejudiced ass.

Cameron was out that evening, probably lording his mathematical prowess over the other freshmen, so Knox sat by himself in their room. Alone. More than ever, he understood the state of being lonesome - of being _other_. His chest ached with homesickness. He missed his father’s rumbling laugh, and his Baba’s singing voice when she prayed, and his mother’s sumac chicken, and her stuffed grape leaves, and the way the candlelight from the Menorah made his living room glow golden, late at night.

 _'Stop it,'_ he chastised himself. _'Grow up, Knox. You’re not a little kid.'_

It was the first day of Chanukah, 1957, and Knox whispered the candle prayers to himself and an empty bedroom, and held the candle in his hand until it was warm enough for him to pretend that it was burning.

He hid his kippah under his pillow, and went to the common room. He was behind on his Chemistry homework.

. . .

Most of his friends weren’t bigoted assholes like Cameron, though. Over the years, Neil would always come up with a lie to get Knox excused from class during Yom Kippur, and Meeks had jumped at the opportunity to expand his knowledge of language—though he was upset that Knox didn’t speak the Jewish dialect, _'I’m sorry, Meeks, but Yiddish is not part of my thing'_ —, the idea of Hebrew cheered him right up. And Charlie, well.

“Motherfucker, I swear you only have the same kind of joke,” Charlie said one day during lunch, when Cameron was in the middle of telling his weekly anecdote of a Jew and a thief walk into a bar...

“You just don’t have a sense of humor,” Cameron had said, oblivious to everyone’s glares. “I mean—a crook with a crooked nose—“

“That’s the same joke twice,” Charlie deadpanned. Everyone made a point to laugh loudly, making Cameron turn beet red and shut up.

Knox had looked at Charlie with a faint but grateful smile. Charlie grinned at him, all bravado and mischief and magic, and Knox didn’t understand why something so beautiful made his heart skip a beat. He looked away first, but still couldn’t help the way he laughed when, later that night, Charlie had pulled him away from the study group to make Knox promise to tell him if Cameron said any more fucked up stuff.

“I’ll shove his precious compass right up his ass,” Charlie had promised, standing close enough to Knox that his faint freckles were visible over the bridge of his nose. “And make him draw a perfect circumference while sitting down. That’ll show him.”

Charlie’s face when Knox cracked up was almost too bright to look at. And when Knox sobered up and thanked him, he promised himself to sort those feelings out later.

(Knox was seventeen when he fell for Chris Noel. And, if he was being honest, he did not fall for _her_.

He fell for the way she’d sing Yiddish lullabies under her breath when she was distracted, and for the Magen David necklace he knew she kept hidden under her shirts. He fell for the way she always refused to go out with him on Friday nights, and was always “busy” on Saturdays.

She was safe. She was like _him_. But Knox was not in love with her. He loved the idea of how his future would follow, with her by his side.

No, he was not in love with her.

Someone else.)

• • •

Todd Anderson started at Welton during their senior year, and Knox noticed three things.

The way Knox heard him say to himself, _vi tsu derleb ikh im shoyn tsu bagrobn_ , after he’d had too much of Cameron’s bullshit, (Knox might not speak Yiddish, but no other language can sound like that), and how he’d strategically set up a Mezuzah on the side of his bedside table, because he obviously couldn’t put it on his dorm room door.

The scribbled Magen David's on the margins of a paper he’d lent to Knox, once, and the way he hunched in on himself whenever the word “Jew” was thrown around like it was worth nothing.

And the way he coincidentally caught the same stomach bug that Knox did, during the day of Yom Kippur, even though there was no stomach bug, because neither of them were actually sick. It was also a Friday, and while everyone else was off at class, Todd and Knox were left on their own so as to not contaminate any of the other students, which worked just as well for them.

They’d been together at Todd and Neil’s room in silence for the better part of an hour, with Todd pretending to read, and Knox doodling on a spare sheet of paper.

“Have you eaten anything today?” Knox asked Todd, who was perched up in his own bed, while Knox idly laid on Neil’s perfectly made sheets and tried to ignore the rumbling in his stomach.

Todd’s eyes went wide for a split second before he recovered. _'Ha,'_ Knox thought, amused. _'Got you.'_

“No,” he stammered. “Can’t keep anything down. Stomach bug, remember?”

Knox snorted. “Is that stomach bug called God’s wrath, Anderson?”

Todd didn’t answer. When Knox looked at him, his face had slackened somewhat from its previous tension. “You, too?” He asked, softly.

“Fucking finally,” said Knox, but he was smiling.

He sat next to Todd on the bed, because that seemed like the right thing to do. Todd didn’t shy away from the sudden closeness, which was as much as a bouquet of flowers and an 'I love you' from him.

“So,” Knox started.

He didn’t ask why Todd hadn’t told him, because it’s not like Knox himself had said anything. He didn’t mention family, because he wasn’t cruel.

“How do you usually break the fast?” he asked. “My mom usually makes a bunch of stuffed grape leaves, you know? Like, we ate the biscuits they gave out at the temple, then got home and actually broke the fast.”

Todd shrugged, sheepish. “I don’t know. Usually we have dinner at my Zaide—my grandfather’s place,” he added, at Knox’s look. “My grandma always made honey cake. It‘s Jeffrey’s favorite.”

Knox nudged Todd with his shoulder, because he didn’t like the glum look that settled over Todd’s face with the mention of his brother. He kept nudging and repeating “well, well, well,” until Todd cracked a smile and nudged back.

“Well,” Knox said one more time, for good measure. “It’s Friday, so Hagen will probably too busy keeping the freshmen from killing each other, and Nolan‘s hid away at the mausoleum he calls his office anyway, so what do you say we go into town and get ourselves some trashy food from a trashy diner after the sun sets?”

And Todd—scared-of-his-own-shadow Todd, too-afraid-to-speak-during-class Todd, Todd who double and triple checks himself before giving his own opinion—gave him a wicked grin.

“You bet your ass, _Knoxious_ ,” he said, and Knox laughed, and Todd joined in.

And, well. Still lonesome. Still _other_. But perhaps not lonely. Perhaps not only. 

**Author's Note:**

> "vi tsu derleb ikh im shoyn tsu bagrobn" is yiddish for "i hope i outlive you long enough to bury you." what did i say about yiddish curses being the best  
> also "zaide" is an yiddish term for grandfather, in case you hadn't gathered.  
> and! todd being ashkenazi means his family is from eastern europe, which is where yiddish came to be. that's why he can speak it and knox can't! knox is sephardi, which means his family is from somewhere in the iberian peninsule. 
> 
> thank you so much for reading!


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